A Walk in the Park

The United States is blessed with numerous parks for people to enjoy. There are national parks, state parks, county parks and municipal parks which provide activities ranging from picnic tables to mountain climbing. There truly is something for everyone. We of course like to get out our trusty GPS for geocaching and other stashing activities.

Here’s a view of George Washington’s Mt. Vernon that most people don’t see. This is the West Gate. In Washington’s day, this was the entrance to Mt. Vernon. All the trees you see were terraces and fields with crops and orchards. Washington rode out here almost every day to take it all in. Today, this view is seen from a quiet residential street intersection in Mt. Vernon, VA. and is not on the official tour. We found out about it – and hunted it down – through a geocache.

The very first national park was Yellowstone National Park which was established March 1, 1872 by President Ulysses S. Grant. The National Park System wasn’t established until August 25, 1916 under President Woodrow Wilson. There are currently 391 areas in the system which cover over 84 million acres in 49 states (nothing in Delaware), the District of Columbia and in US Territories American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Alphabetically the parks range from the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace to Zion National Park. Some of them are very well known such as the Grand Canyon and Yosemite. Some are much lesser known such as Cowpens and Pea Ridge. The largest national park is Wrangell-St Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska. The smallest is Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial in Pennsylvania.

In addition to National Parks, there are also National Monuments (Mt. Rushmore), National Military Parks (Gettysburg), National Historical Parks (Independence Hall), National Historical Sites (Ford’s Theater) and National Historical Trails (The Appalachian Trail). In recent years, the National Park System has logged well over 200 million visitors annually.

All of this is run by the National Park Service. It does not permit traditional container caches in the parks but that doesn’t stop us. There are virtual caches, photo caches, webcam caches, earth caches and waymarks which are equally challenging. They have the added benefits of being informative and educational. There are also geodashing points, where you can end up literally in the middle of nowhere. All these things will take you to parts of the park that are off the beaten path.

State, county and municipal parks are not so strict. With the explosive growth of geocaching in the last several years, it’s hard to find a park anywhere that doesn’t have at least one geocache in it. Even the tiny memorial parks have them. Many of these caches are quick park ‘n’ grabs but many will also take you as far in the wild as you want to go. We’ve canoed to several caches and rode on horseback to a cache in Butch Cassidy’s Hole-in-the-Wall in Wyoming. Historical markers abound in these parks and often the geocaches are designed around them. It’s a great way to explore and learn.

Geocaching and all that goes with it has brought us to some of the most interesting and beautiful out-of-the-way places in this country. It remains an unregulated activity which relies upon the participants to respect and protect the environment in which the caches are located. Please do your part to help preserve it for others to enjoy.

About the Image

There are 12 random header images that change with every click (most of the time). Each one has a caption that identifies it. All these places were geocache locations. The photos were taken by yours truly. Enjoy.